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Washington, Minnesota officially endorse a “safer, faster” traffic merge

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Re: Washington, Minnesota officially endorse a “safer, faster” traffic merge

#181

Post by obsurveyor »

jerf wrote: post #19
pwenzel wrote: post #8

As a driver in the Twin Cities area, I can back the stereotype that Minnesotans don't know how to zipper. It speaks so truly of the Minnesota condition. People begin often merge far too early, and get offended when folks like myself "budge" at the front of the line. Learn to zipper, darn it! Edit: This TPT parody, How to Talk Minnesotan, shows how to drive in Minnesota (scrub to 11:58): http://video.tpt.org/video/236…

People think they are being nice. Education can work very quickly and efficiently on such people by showing them they aren't being nice after all. I live in the US in a "nice driver" area with a number of traffic circles. On a fairly routine basis I come up to a traffic circle and stop because there is someone in it coming towards me, but then they try to "helpfully" stop and wave me in, slowing down themselves, ever…

If it's a "traffic circle", you may be the one messing it up because entering traffic can have right of way. In a roundabout, it's the opposite. Terminology is important here because they are two different things.

Re: Washington, Minnesota officially endorse a “safer, faster” traffic merge

#183

Post by jerf »

obsurveyor wrote: post #181
jerf wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People think they are being nice. Education can work very quickly and efficiently on such people by showing them they aren't being nice after all. I live in the US in a "nice driver" area with a number of traffic circles. On a fairly routine basis I come up to a traffic circle and stop because there is someone in it coming towards me, but then they try to "helpfully" stop and wave me in, slowing down themselves, ever…

If it's a "traffic circle", you may be the one messing it up because entering traffic can have right of way. In a roundabout, it's the opposite. Terminology is important here because they are two different things.

Roundabout, then. Terminology will probably cease to be important as "traffic circles" as you describe them are dying if not dead.

Re: Washington, Minnesota officially endorse a “safer, faster” traffic merge

#184

Post by [deleted] »

nhaehnle wrote: post #178
sjwright wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That rule already applies. It's no different on a circular road or roundabout; traffic already on a road has priority over traffic turning onto it.

"Traffic already on a road" is a concept that does not apply in this scenario, as all traffic is already on a road in all cases. There is no a priori way to distinguish between the circular road and the roads leading towards it. In countries where you drive on the right, I believe the typical default rule is that traffic coming from the right has priority. In roundabouts, this would mean that traffic on the roundabou…

[deleted]

Re: Washington, Minnesota officially endorse a “safer, faster” traffic merge

#185

Post by sjwright »

watwut wrote: post #179
sjwright wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That rule already applies. It's no different on a circular road or roundabout; traffic already on a road has priority over traffic turning onto it.

I guess that depends where you live. That thing is intersection like any other and the one on the right has a priority. So, unless there is a sign, the car about to enter the circular road should go first. And yes, all roundabouts have signs in here.

I live in Australia, but I've also driven in the UK and parts of Europe. Any roundabout I've used has worked in the same way -- as you approach the roundabout, you must give way to vehicles already on the roundabout.

Relevant to the circular road with T-intersection analogy, I'm reading the Wikipedia page[0] on T-intersections and I must admit the concept that "vehicles on the right always have the right-of-way" makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. But I suppose that weird rule would screw up the circular road metaphor.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-way_junction#Right-of-wa...

Re: Washington, Minnesota officially endorse a “safer, faster” traffic merge

#186

Post by danielweber »

adwf wrote: post #103
MagicWishMonkey wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is most people don't know how to properly zipper merge, so pretending that everything would be hunky dory as long as people play by a set of rules that you know they aren't likely to play by is an exercise in futility.

Don't know why you're being downvoted; I've had too many people deliberately block my merge when I merge late, to ever try it at full speed in the UK :(

The solution is more late-mergers: if the other lane were already full, you wouldn't be "cheating" by passing all the cars who are "waiting patiently." You would just be waiting in a line the same as everyone else in your lane and the other lane.

I may be overly optimistic, but I think a sign saying "use both lanes and zipper merge at end" would do a lot.

Re: Washington, Minnesota officially endorse a “safer, faster” traffic merge

#187

Post by danielweber »

boyaka wrote: post #176
simias wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to have the same speed at the point of merging, not while you're just driving 1km of empty lane leading to the merge point. It would be very silly to drive at a snail pace in an empty lane for no reason. You just have to slow down to the other lane's pace when reaching the merge point. What would be the point of matching speed with the other lane when you're not actually about to merge?

His reasoning is safety, because it's supposedly (and I guess understandably...) unsafe for cars to be moving at very different speeds next to each other. I assume what people are afraid of (or what actually happens) is that people in the lane moving slower might drift/shift into the lane moving faster and cause a collision. When this happens while both lanes are moving at similar speeds both cars are more capable of…

As you say, there is a lot of room between "drive 10mph stop and go next to the backed up lane even though everything is wide open in front of you" and "drive 65mph next to the lane going 10mph."

Your speed should not be more than 20mph different from the lane next to you. That's probably at or even past the limit of a safe speed differential.

Re: Washington, Minnesota officially endorse a “safer, faster” traffic merge

#188

Post by vrikis »

JeanMertz wrote: post #180
joelcollinsdc wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its pedantic, but I think this is sublty different than what is being dicussed here. All over the US, there are situations where 2 lanes converge to 1 and drivers "take turns" merging. But I think the scenario that is being discussed is a little different, where there is 1 "working" lane and one "closed" lane, the thought process of drivers in the lane that they know is 'closed' up ahead is to merge early. I wonder i…

I live in the Netherlands, but drive through Belgium when driving home from work. There is one area where a permanent two-lane road merges into a single lane. The funny thing is that (mostly) Belgians never use the second (left) lane that eventually merges into the single right lane. This always seems stupid to me, because it increases the length of the traffic jam so much, that the traffic jam goes all the way over…

This is what it's like in Scotland!! People here get SO angry, thinking that you have "skipped" all the other patiently waiting people... And then they don't let you merge! And it makes absolutely no sense to me, because they cause one reallllyyyy long traffic jam then...

Re: Washington, Minnesota officially endorse a “safer, faster” traffic merge

#189

Post by ericcumbee »

chrisseaton wrote: post #127
ericcumbee wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we have a couple around here near campus. The problem is shockingly few people know how to behave in a traffic circle.

"few people know how to behave in a traffic circle" Tell them this: imagine a big circular road. Then imagine other roads joining it with T junctions. Then imagine the road is one-way. Finally just shrink the road in your head. That's all it is!

They have signs that say "Yield to Traffic in Circle" at each entry point. I agree it is a simple concept yet people seem to struggle with it around here.

Re: Washington, Minnesota officially endorse a “safer, faster” traffic merge

#190

Post by emerod »

In contrast to the states promoting zipper merging, Indiana recently redesigned some interchanges to effectively eliminate the single merge point. They added extra lanes so that one "preferred" lane (the one that formerly backed up everyone for three miles) is no longer the sole access for any of the off-ramps. Now, everyone has basically three miles in which to merge into, out of, or across this lane, rather than piling into it all at once.

This picture doesn't show the full extent of the redesign, but the yellow highlighted part is the former problem lane.

http://www.in.gov/indot/files/MPOICI69_NBInterchange_2012.JP...

http://www.in.gov/indot/3071.htm

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